Under 600
by BluePard
Summary: This is where the short, Tommy-centric fic goes. Find out: 1. How Tommy and Billy lost their virginity, 2. Why they didn't lose it to Batman, 3. What's so appealing about this moron, 4. How tired he is, 5. How they lost the war, and 6. How Tommy relaxes.
1. How Tommy and Billy Lost Their Virginity

"Oh, great Iososis, we offer to you this sacrifice!"

"I can't believe this is happening," said Tommy.

"I don't see why not," said Billy, "It happens a lot."

"Yeah, to _you_."

"Iososis, accept these powerful virgin twins and grant us your divine favor!"

"… what?" said Tommy. "Virgin twins?"

"You mean we're going to die because you haven't had sex?" said Billy.

"Wait, _me?"_

"You're the one who rushes into things," said Billy, "Why are you a virgin?"

"Kate doesn't put out."

"You two are dating?"

"No."

"That might be why."

"You're the one with the boyfriend," said Tommy, "Why don't you put out?"

"We're waiting." said Billy.

"Oh, come on."

"What? We haven't been dating that long. And we've never had a real relationship before," said Billy, "It's harder to find dates when you're gay."

"I'd use that as a reason to have sex sooner, not later." said Tommy.

"Oh god." said Billy.

"Yeah, I think that's the god."

"I saw something like that in an anime once."

"…was it porn?" said Tommy.

"Kind of."

"We are so screwed. Literally."

"Oh god." said Billy. 


	2. Geek Fetish

"The hell is that?"

Teddy winced. He'd learned by now that it was a bad idea to let Tommy anywhere near anything fannish. The culture shock was always a problem. The culture shock and Tommy's tendency to lean over and steal the mouse.

"Ship manifesto?" said Teddy, "People talk about why they like two characters together, basically, why the relationship works."

"Why are there X-men on here? They're real people."

"People do ship celebrities," said Billy, leaning over his chair. "Sue and Reed have a huge following."

"So this is the geek version of gossiping about Angelina Jolie and ..." Tommy faltered.

"Brad Pitt," Kate supplied with some amusement.

"If there's any Young Avengers listed, I'm going to have to vaporize someone."

"There aren't," said Teddy.

"It's creepy." said Tommy.

"Is it better or worse if it's real people?" said Billy, apparently curious.

"Worse." Tommy spoke with authority. "Caring about fake people is just sad, not creepy."

"You know," said Teddy, "Crossovers happen in comics all the time. And comics--well, Marvel comics anyway--are based on stuff that really happened."

"You think the Avengers really met the Justice League?" said Billy, grinning ear to ear.

"We could ask." said Teddy, grinning back.

"You're never going to meet Batman," said Tommy.

"It wouldn't be that much stranger than some things we've seen," said Kate, gently, before they could argue. There was a pause as Teddy and Billy got caught up in the idea, and Tommy groused.

"Team-up with iBatman./i" said Billy reverentially.

"Okay, Batman? Does not want a threesome with you." said Tommy.

"That's not what we were saying." said Teddy angrily. Apparently deciding it was too late to stop an argument, Kate hid her head--and perhaps a smirk--in her hand.

"Robin doesn't want a threesome with you either."

"I can think of at least two who might," said Billy.

That got him a look. "There's more than one Robin?"

"There's four ... well, plus alternate universe Robins..." said Billy.

"Kate, they're planning a foursome with fictional characters," said Tommy, "Make them stop."

"Why don't you plan something with Wonder Woman?" said Kate. She was definitely smirking.

"Not my fetish."

"Batgirl's a redhead," said Billy.

"...closer to my fetish."

Eli finally spoke from where he was working. "Stop. Talking."

There was a momentary pause as they looked at him.

"So anyway ... are we talking a fiery redhead or what?"

"She's a sexy librarian." said Billy as though this were an official classification.

"So, what? I talk around the books, I get a spanking?"

Eli buried his head in his hands. Kate gave him a pat on the shoulder as she passed, leaving Billy and Teddy to argue that Tommy wasn't Babs's type. 


	3. First Impression

The first thing you notice about Tommy is his eyes. They're piercing blue, active and intelligent. Blue as the day he was born, blue and ageless, like ...

Not like an angel. An angel's eyes would be faded and worn from years of tough decisions. Tommy's eyes are a devil's: six thousand years and still tempting.

The second thing you notice is the energy. Like the brightness of his eyes, like a being just born, he stands and gestures and continues on, untouched by the world, gravity or inertia. The third thing you notice is a side-note to the second; his body is lean and muscled from constant use, a polished tool.

The fourth thing you notice is the words that are actually coming out of his mouth.

"Look, look ... one girl, good. Two girls, twice as good. That's basic math!"

At this point you realize that, despite the first three things, he's still a stupid teenage boy.

You take in the complete picture--the wry grin at the corner of his mouth, the playful sweep of a hand, the total inability to tell whether or not he's being serious. And perhaps you wonder what he'll be like once he's grown out of being a stupid teenage boy ... but that thought dies there.

It's impossible to imagine. Those devil's eyes, made for tempting, six thousand years and still trying, say he will never learn a goddamn thing. 


	4. Movement

Tommy pressed forward. His legs had long ago begun to tire. He was speed-walking now. His footsteps made heavy by weariness, he kicked up clumsy dust.

He kind of liked it, even though the pain increased with each movement. It made him aware of his muscles, of the matching actions of tensing and relaxing. His power pushed him onward--not just his supernatural but his personal power, the flesh of his body. Tense then relax then tense, in an endless cycle.

The pain in his feet was not so enjoyable. He was always wishing for a more comfortable pair of shoes. His feet burned under the pressure of each step. He hit a nerve in his left foot and winced. Fire turned into lightning. It felt as though his big toe had burst, and he was walking on the shredded remains. He walked on, wishing he could stop. A limp went all the way up the body--foot to leg to hip to back to shoulders. Soon, everything was sore from the off-kilter gait. But he ignored it, and the cycle continued. It was easier to walk than to stop and start again, and eventually the pain subsided.

Sometimes he wanted to continue endlessly like this. If he could find a world with no oceans, he would walk forever in one direction, never looking back. Eventually, he would circle the planet and return to where he had started.

He seemed to be doing that now, his body in endless motion, the previous step driving the next step forward. His destination would likely be right where he had started. 


	5. Civil War

Kate gave Cassie a long and tight hug.

"This won't make you safer," Tommy said, "They eat their own."

"Tony's not like that," said Cassie, "He's protected me my whole life. Once I tell him what I've seen, he'll stop it."

Tommy shook his head. The others said nothing, but their faces were grim. Billy frowned, perhaps remembering Tony Stark best as the man who had thrown his boyfriend down ten stories, not knowing he would survive. Teddy and Vision looked worried, not trusting that Cassie would be treated as anything but another soldier. Eli and Kate had for once agreed on something--that Tony Stark could not or would not stop the abuses they had seen.

They were caught between their hope and their fear. But they were tired; they would not argue against Cassie's hope any longer, but simply hope themselves that they were wrong.

Teddy, Billy, and Vision left next. Again, only Tommy argued.

"Grunts aren't told shit," he said, "You won't learn anything, and they'll have you."

They just shook their heads at him. He turned out to be right, at least about Teddy and Billy. They learned little except that recruits vanished with worrying speed. Vision had better luck--they seemed to forget he was not his predecessor and so he was constantly on the front line--but his missions had yet to give him anything they could use.

They lost Tommy next. No one knew if he had been captured or simply run away. They argued with themselves, unsure which was the better option, cursing and worrying in turns.

"Running away is always the first thing he thinks of," said Eli, "He wanted to run to Canada before we told him they have their own registration."

"He wouldn't have gone without saying goodbye," said Kate. Her lip quirked up slightly. "And he wouldn't have left us alone together."

Eli quieted, leaving them both stewing in worried silence. The group now met only in piecemeal, with sad smiles that confirmed that yes, this was everyone who was coming. After many near-misses, Kate and Eli grew better at save-and-run, and at hiding, in part because there were so few left to hide.

Their teammates were left unsure and impotent. To ask about Tommy was for them to admit they knew he was missing, and that were still in contact with the Secret Avengers. They never spotted him on the training grounds, but that still left the worst possibilities. A stray remark from Cassie about how she missed Kate, Eli, and Tommy got no response from Iron Man. Billy's locater spells failed every time--wherever Tommy was, he was far, far away.

Protests had been made about the experimentation and the violence, and they were told these matters would be looked into. Missions were assigned and were completed successfully. They never understood what they accomplished or whether they had done something good or something bad. They were on the side that both hunted and saved children, so they followed orders with no idea whether their actions were that of villains or heroes. Meanwhile, they worried about the things gone on unseen--the experimentation, the deaths, and the hunt.

Who knew what was happening to those people--perhaps to one of their friends? And what could they do? The team was built on stepping up where others had stepped down. Now they were pushed out of the way and left with no clear direction.

They were stubborn; they would not give up. They would fight their losing battles--for people who cursed their help, for some good among the bad, for the day they would be reunited.

Sometimes Cassie thought about Iron Lad's last words and wept. Any of them could say them now.

"I loved being a Young Avenger." 


	6. Monkey Therapy

Kate heard the door slamming from several rooms over. As she came to see what had happened, Eli stormed past her as though he didn't see her.

Eli or Tommy, Eli or Tommy ... Tommy was more likely to do property damage.

She ventured into the kitchen. The door wobbled crookedly as she opened it.

All right, more likely to do _more_ property damage.

To her surprise, Tommy was sitting quietly at the table. He had a knife, a pomegranate, and an expression of intense concentration.

Kate slid in across from him. "So you're the one who's been eating them. Worried about getting your antioxidants?"

Tommy broke open another section of the fruit before looking up and stopping.

"Monkey therapy," he said seriously.

"Monkey therapy?" Kate repeated, cocking an eyebrow. She wasn't smiling yet, except for a little at the corners of her mouth.

"It's my mom's thing," said Tommy, resuming his careful and sticky task, "If you're agitated, eat something that's hard to eat. She used to give me sunflower seeds when I was a kid, and I'd spend forever breaking the shells open and forget what I was mad about." Tommy weighed the pomegranate section in Kate's direction. "Pomegranates were what she used, though."

"Too sticky for a kid, hm?" said Kate. Or just for Tommy. He already had some red flecks in his white hair.

"And too expensive. It works pretty well. Didn't stop her from divorcing dad, though." Tommy bit off a group of kernels expertly without breaking them and chewed thoughtfully. "Probably because it was summer."

"I usually separate the seeds and then eat them," said Kate.

"Oh, that's missing the whole point." said Tommy, "Here, try."

He handed her the section, and she obligingly took it and began to pry it apart. She got juice under her nails almost immediately, and she was sure it had squirted somewhere unfortunate. She looked across the table to find Tommy pulling apart the rest of the fruit with practiced precision, although that didn't make his hands any less red-stained.

It was far more entertaining to watch Tommy than to eat this herself. He used his fingers, lips, teeth, and nails—such that he had—in a quiet, absorbed effort into getting every single tiny kernel.

It's sweet and tart, she thought. You can chew on it. You can play with it in your hands. You can use your lips and teeth.

Monkey therapy, yes.

Tommy finished, looked up and noticed she was watching. From his expression, he was belatedly realizing how silly he must look.

"It's good," he said in his defense.

"It seems so," she said, smiling and returning her piece to his bowl, "I'll try it sometime. When I'm not wearing white." She indicated her scarf, then went to wash her hands.

"Right," said Tommy. He ate the remaining piece and cleaned up, which involved splashing water over his entire face, his bangs, and the front of his shirt.

"Feel better?"

"Eli's still a prick," said Tommy shortly, "But I'll deal."

Kate just smiled, rubbing a fleck of pink out of his hair. Tommy's eyes followed her fingers, and his face broke out in a crooked grin.

He let her leave without comment, probably because he was staring, she knew. She was going to have to make sure the fridge was stocked with pomegranates until spring and not just for Tommy's sake.

This was exactly what old sweatshirts were made for. And if she could get the rest of them doing it, all the better. 


End file.
